


Stage 5: Dry Remains

by orphan_account



Category: Frankenstein & Related Fandoms, Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
Genre: AU where the creature died in the woods, Gen, This is weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-25 00:43:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20023723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Bones have secrets, if you listen long enough.





	Stage 5: Dry Remains

Bones tell tales, tales of life and mystery, and of the things you should avoid out in the wild. They whisper secrets so twisted that women go mad and men hang themselves, secrets no mortal should ever understand. Bones have power, and they’re very wise with its use. 

Some bones have stories of victory, bountiful quests where heroes succeed against the enemy, but failed against their own wounds. Others speak of happiness, of living alone and collecting herbs for special spells and potions. The remnants of children always have stories of misery, and stillbirths tales of fear.

Out in the deepest part of the woods surrounding Ingolstadt, there is a pile of very very wise bone. It used to belong to something almost human, but not quite. The remains of something almost a stillborn, but almost an adult. They have quite a story to tell, if anyone would take the time to sit and listen carefully. 

These bones will tell you something quite peculiar, about their life, short as it was. They’ll whisper of a mad man in Ingolstadt University, their father through all but title. The sticky cartilage will shout of how he had screamed at the site of them, on their birthday, of how he fled the room and slammed the door shut. It will talk, mournful, of how they reached for a hug once they learnt to walk, and met flailing fists and incomprehensible bellowing. 

The scraps of maggot filled skin will chat about the woods they found themselves in, about the biting cold and how it made their flesh burn and freeze at the same time. The maggots, full and bloated from their meal, might add in when they decided to come and dine. Buzzing flies will chatter endlessly, much like how their iridescent wings buzzed, on the stench the bones used to give off. They would tell of how strong it was, and how attractive. 

Femurs will murmur of the long strides they would take in their prime, quick and elegant despite the pain in their decayed thighs, and the blood dripping down their scarred hips. They will brag of the hours they managed to stand, looking for a house or home to reside in. The dead can be very prideful, after all.

Broken ribs, collapsed from animals scavenging for lung and heart, will speak of the pain in their former chest. Every breath was a death rattle, they will recount, something filled with slime and spittle, swollen and agonizing. They might mention how the old stomach their father gave them eventually stopped, and of how they would help force sticky yellow bile and undigested fruit from their old self. 

If you’re lucky, and understanding, the hands might decide to tell you something special. They will talk of their attempts to fix themselves, to sew themselves back together. They might even paint imagery with it, of the red blood that made them too slippery to work, and the way they would jitter from pain and fear. 

The skull is typically the last to speak, and the longest. However, the stories it will twist make the wait worth it to many. They will talk of their eyes, puss filled and drooling, and of how they would close and glue together from cataracts and infection. They would convey the agony of feeling your gums rot away, and how you should always try to avoid that one, if you had the choice. Of how a rotting heart would make their brain so dizzy, and would make them faint whenever they stood up too fast. 

The most detailed part might be the end. These special, unholy bones will all come together at once for this, and many swear up and down they hear a deep voice behind them once the final story begins. The group will weave a story of rot and decay, of how their arms went missing years ago, and of how they could never find them before their eyes followed. The stitching that wove them, they would explain, was sloppy and weak. It wouldn’t hold against normal movement, and it didn’t.

They will scream of the colorful way it all stopped, bright blue bruising and red swelling. The neon yellows and greens of infection and a deep black of rot. Of the way their pretty hair fell out clump by clump from their sore ridden scalp, shiny like dark oil. Of the way their heart eventually stopped working, too bloated from puss and sepsis and ooze, and of how they were made to lie down on the ground and go to sleep.

The cranium might add in the lack of nightmares, while the ribs would bring attention to pressure on them at this time. The putrefied muscle, comfortable at this point, shall bring up the way they were black when the skin finally split. 

If the audience can stomach to this point, they will have this strange creature’s respect, and a blessing of luck. The madman's changeling will oftentimes wish you the best on your journey, and tell you to obey what the others like them warn you of. Always heed this advice, because these bones know what happens when you don’t.

After all, how else do you think they died?


End file.
